Archive | June, 2008

This weekend, while smelling mounds of lavender and staring at the Atlantic Ocean on the Northeast tip of Long Island, we got to talking about horseback riding and the secret life of a horse obsessed teenager. The life of a “horse girl” is full of horse books, horse camps, horse movies, and competition, but it mainly consists of constant horse daydreaming and overt attempts at making horses part of everything you do on a day to day basis.

Well, horse girls of the world, your time has come. I’m SURE you’ve already done this and you’re looking at me like I’m 100 years too late, but try it anyway. Turn off your Black Stallion DVD for just one minute and head on up to New York’s Museum Of Natural History to check out the Horses exhibit and find out how nature’s most majestic creatures shaped our world.

Danielgraciously sent us the voice of God over the Internets a few hours ago and we’ve been smiling ever since. These miracles have been sitting in the sun for about forty years and they’ve never tasted as good as they do right this very instant. Amen.

We’ve been thinking about summer camp a lot as of late and, when we were young, we went to a great gem of a place in Bemidji, Minnesota for four straight years in a row. There’s a big ol’ statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe in Bemidji (pictured above) and, according to Wikipedia, that ain’t the only place with such a shrine. Paul and Babe statues reside in Brainerd, MN, Westwood, CA, Del Norte County, CA, St. Ignace, MI, Ossineke, MI, and Eau Claire, WI. There are a bunch of other places that have statues of just Mr. Bunyan, but without his sidekick, what’s the point?

Everglades National Park is one of Cold Splinters’ favorite places on Earth and yesterday was a historic day for the park. The nation’s largest sugarcane producer agreed to sell all of its assets to the state and go out of business. Florida will pay $1.75 billion for United States Sugar, which will turn over 187,000 acres north of Everglades National Park in the next six years.

Governor Charlie Crist announced, “I can envision no better gift to the Everglades, the people of Florida and the people of America — as well as our planet — than to place in public ownership this missing link that represents the key to true restoration.” Crist also called the deal “as monumental as the creation of the nation’s first national park, Yellowstone.”

The New York Timessays, “The impact on the Everglades could be substantial. The natural flow of water would be restored, and the expanse of about 292 square miles would add about a million acre-feet of water storage. That amount of water — enough to fill about 500,000 Olympic size swimming pools — could soak the southern Everglades during the dry season, protecting wildlife, preventing fires, and allowing for a redrawing of the $8 billion Everglades restoration plan approved in 2000.”

A few years back, we went up to BB King’s in Times Square and sat in a small dark room with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, an upside down Stetson, and a whole mess of coffee. Tim didn’t know how to work a camera, I didn’t know how to do an interview, but Ramblin’ Jack sure did know how to talk. He gave us a little info about him and Bob Dylan touring together as the Rolling Thunder Revue and we just about lost it:

“I was the first one to put the flower in my hat on Rolling Thunder Revue. We got into the Rolling Thunder Revue hat/flower contest, who could have more flowers in their hat. At each successive show, I’d have 3 flowers, Bob had 4. I’d have 4 and he’d have 5. We were just playing around with the makeup too. I had a heart painted on my face one time. Another time I had a tear coming out of my eye. We were like rodeo clowns. I remember when Arlo [Guthrie] asked Bob why he always had that clown white on his face. Arlo said, ‘What’s that shit on your face?’ Bob said, ‘What face?’”

We had some friends who recently got marooned on an overnight trip – rain, hail, wind, the whole bit. The four of em slept half the night in a greenhouse and the other half in a 2 man tent (with one headlamp). Now if there’s one thing that we know, its that having the right gear can make all the difference on a trip (ask Bear Grylls or JT$). And if there’s one other thing that we know, its that the internet is a pretty good place to shop compulsively for your stuff. If you’re into refreshing constantly and finding killer deals, might we suggest Backcountry.com’sone deal at a time haven Steep and Cheap. You might get hooked.

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.